News: Views

01 May

[01-02-10] A New Year. A New Decade
At the start of a new year and a new decade Rich Wilson shares something of God's heart for Open Heaven.
[04-12-09] Grace for Growth
Growth begins and ends with grace.
[02-12-09] God and Dualisms
At the leaders' weekend earlier in the year, we heard quite a lot about how dualistic thinking works in our lives.
[01-12-09] A Big Thank You
Over the last few weeks we referred to Nov 22nd 09 as the day we would come together to raise thousands and thousands of pounds.
[06-05-09] Stories from Encounter
The Encounter Weekend continues to be one of my highlights in the year.
[01-05-09] Imagine a church that...
The unusual thing about the theme for this term is that I knew a couple of years ago (April '07) that we should do this theme in about two years time – which is now! I don’t think that process has ever happened before in the choosing of a term’s theme.
[29-04-09] Well Done You’ve Made It!
You’ve made it to the end of lent and gone without whatever it was you chose to give up.
[03-04-09] Study War No More
The global arms trade is wreaking havoc around the world.
[08-12-08] Chocolate Traffic
Fancy working 80-100 hours a week for little pay? If so the chocolate trade is for you.
[11-11-08] Update on our 08-09 Goals
We've been pursuing our strategic goals for 08-09 for over two months now, so I thought it would be good to update everyone on how they're going.

Imagine a church that...

The unusual thing about the theme for this term is that I knew a couple of years ago (April '07) that we should do this theme in about two years time – which is now! I don’t think that process has ever happened before in the choosing of a term’s theme.

So, what happened in April '07? It was then that, after fourteen years of everyone meeting together for one Sunday gathering, we went into two expressions of Open Heaven.

Starting OH2 came about as we recognised the increasingly different needs of the life-stages within our church community, and the window of opportunity that becoming a parent brings. So a team was formed and OH2 began – an hour long, family-friendly expression of Open Heaven.

There are many benefits of having two expressions: it provides two shop windows or access points on a Sunday for people to experience God’s presence, and his community, in a way that is culturally relevant to them; two gatherings has also opened up more opportunities for leadership and created more space for people’s gifts and contributions.

However, one potential risk of starting another gathering was the two expressions getting disconnected from each other, and us all losing that sense of belonging to the bigger purpose of what Open Heaven is all about. I knew it would take about two years for OH2 to get properly established and gain a sense of identity and momentum. So I decided that after this time we would need to do a series that went across both expressions that reminded us all again of our distinctives as Open Heaven. A series that defined again what marks us out as a church, what are we about and what are we going for.

And so, here we are, starting a series which we’ve called “Imagine a church that…” where we are shining the spotlight again on the things we’re passionate about, the core values of this church, and the things that make us us. I’ve enjoyed working on this term’s programme a lot as it’s highlighted again for me why I’m so grateful to be in a church like ours! Hope you enjoy it too.

Posted by: Ness Wilson on Friday May 1st, 2009

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